Lando (also known as Landus[1]) was Pope from either July or November 913 to his death in 914.[2][3] His short pontificate fell during an obscure period in papal and Roman history, the so-called Saeculum obscurum (904–64). He was the last pope to use a papal name (in his case, his birth name) that had not been used previously until the election of Pope Francis in 2013.[a]

According to the Liber pontificalis, Lando was born in the Sabina, and his father was named Taino.[5] The Liber also claims that his pontificate lasted only four months and twenty-two days. A different list of popes, appended to a continuation of the Liber pontificalis at the Abbey of Farfa, was quoted by Gregory of Catino in his Chronicon Farfense in the twelfth century. It gives Lando a pontificate of six months and twenty-six days. This is closer to the duration recorded by Flodoard of Reims of six months and ten days.[5] The end of his pontificate can be dated to between 5 February 914, when he is mentioned in a document of Ravenna, and late March or early April, when his successor, John X, was elected.[5]

Lando is thought to have been a candidate of Theophylact I, Count of Tusculum, who was the powerful man in Rome at the time.[6] His family controlled papal finances through their monopoly of the office of vestararius, and also controlled the Roman militia and Senate.[5] During his reign, Arab raiders, operating from their stronghold on the Garigliano river, destroyed the cathedral of Vescovio in Sabina.[7] No document of Lando's chancery has survived. The only act of his reign that is recorded is a donation to his native diocese mentioned in a judicial act of 1431.[5]